Legal Recruitment News for Lawyers and Law Firms » Monthly News

Budget Special – 22nd June 2010

admin — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 13:06:14 +0000

www.ten-percent.co.uk – Legal Recruitment Consultants

What an amazing budget – I predict pictures of axes on the front of the Daily Mirror and the Sun tomorrow.. More liberal/left wing commentators will say that lower income families have been protected by the Liberal Democrats but middle income families have been hit quite hard, and more right wing observers will applaud the move to get rid of a lot of unnecessary left wing initiatives and benefits..

Highlights:
20% VAT (to start 4th January 2011)
no increase in tax on alcohol, tobacco and fuel.
Child benefit frozen for three years
Cuts to family tax credits removing those above £50,000.
Corporation tax cut to 24%
Small business tax cut to 20%
Income tax allowance increased by £1,000
Two year council tax freeze
Capital Gains Tax increased to 28% for high income tax payers.
Employers NI tax holiday for job creation in the regions
Acceleration in state pension age to 66 years.
Two year pay freeze for public servants paid over £21,000.
Housing benefit – paid up to £400 per week max.
Bank levy to be imposed.
Government departments to be cut by 25% over 4 years.
Forecasts:
Unemployment to fall for the next 4 years after 2010.
Growth forecast to be 1.2 % this year, 2.6% next year, 2.8% in 2012, 2.9% in 2013 and 2.7% in both 2014 and in 2015.
Not certain yet what effect the above will have on anyone, except that small businesses will be very pleased to see the small business tax levels drop to 20%, but no-one will be overjoyed to see the VAT increase to 20%.

CGT increases as well may have implications for any senior partners looking to sell their practices over the next few years, and the state pension age acceleration is going to result in more people needing to work longer, particularly following the recent few years.

I suspect rather a lot of newspapers will be disappointed at the housing benefit restriction as the benefit has been responsible for lots of fascinating stories about claimants living in London mansions and driving convertibles……

Public sector cuts are going to hurt some law firms more than others, and similarly with legal recruitment agencies. Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment have never quite managed to get a foot into this lucrative trade, but plenty of other agencies have established whole departments around it. I suspect a couple of larger regional law firms across the UK may well be laying off some of their specialist public sector lawyers in the next few months…

Jonathan Fagan, MD, Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment – www.ten-percent.co.uk

Money back scheme suggestions for law firms

admin — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 13:49:09 +0000

The UK’s Most Generous Money Back Scheme

At Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment we offer some of the most generous money back offers available. We thought we would share these with you in case any of them are of use to your firm.

1. CV Writing Guarantee

We guarantee to every client that if they are not satisfied with their CV advice or preparation that we will refund our fee in full. We started offering this in May 2000 and also offer it to our Legal Career Coaching clients.

Number of refunds to date = 0.

2. Ten-Percent Unlimited

We guarantee unlimited recruitment for 12 months – ie you will be able to replace any candidate you take from us through the scheme with another candidate as required.

3. Legal Recruitment

We offer 12 month flexible payment option – if the candidate leaves before the end of the 12 months, you simply stop paying us at that point.

Law firms could offer guarantees to clients, and I have come across some who do it.

Conveyancing is one example – if your customer is not happy with the service you provide, you will guarantee to refund their fees in full and pay for another conveyancing firm to complete the work. This is known in the marketing world as “risk reversal” and can be reassuring to clients.

Further Information:

CV Writing: www.ten-percent.co.uk/cv.html
Ten-Percent Unlimited www.ten-percent.co.uk/low-cost-legal-recruitment.html

Legal Recruitment: www.ten-percent.co.uk/er.html

New Complimentary Service for Law Firms – Job Specification and Description Writing

admin — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 13:45:55 +0000

If you have a look at our vacancy database, you will see that some of the vacancies are as vague as “conveyancing solicitor sought by mid-Somerset practice”. Quite a lot of candidates ask us why these descriptions are so vague, and it is usually because firms are very vague. Often a conversation with a firm will be something like “I want a conveyancing solicitor, can you get me some CVs?” We only find out more about the vacancy by sending in CVs that may or may not be appropriate.

New for 2010 – we will write job specifications and descriptions for firms and companies looking to employ legal staff as part of the service.

Simply email your vacancy to us in any form you like, and we will prepare a job specification and send it back through to you. Email cv@ten-percent.co.uk with the subject “Job Spec”.

How to Employ Staff without any Risk – 5 Top Tips

admin — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 13:44:29 +0000

www.tenpercent.co.uk/low-cost-legal-recruitment.html

We are often asked this question when giving advice to law firms, and there are a few very simple pointers:

1. Interview using Competency Based Interviewing Techniques.

For a list of over 150 of these, please email us at cv@ten-percent.co.uk with the Subject: Competency Based Interview Questions.

2. Get a Guarantee of 12 months rebate from your Recruitment Agency

Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment offer a unique guarantee with any introduction – pay monthly - if a candidate leaves your obligation to pay finishes at that point.

3. Always offer a Probationary Period

Make sure your probationary period includes the option for either side to give 1 weeks notice.

4. Google the potential employee’s name and take up references

We know of a company who did this and discovered that the perfect candidate for a job had been arrested for a stalking offence a few months beforehand. Make sure the reference is from the most recent employer.

5. Do what you promised for the new employee

Hold regular meetings, find out how they are doing, give them everything you promised, keep a check on them daily or weekly. Ask other staff members how they are doing.

Wednesday 16th June – Legal Career Guidance – £3 per minute – Central London

admin — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 13:41:33 +0000

Ever thought about speaking to an impartial legal career coach? Jonathan Fagan, MD of Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment, Solicitor (non-practising) and Recruitment Consultant, will be at the St Pancras Novotel on Wednesday 16th June.

You can come and see him with any queries regarding your CV, your career, future plans, leaving the profession, changing fields of law, getting into the profession, forthcoming interviews etc.. The maximum time for a session on this day is 1 hour.

You will get copies of our CV Guide and Interview Guide, a free CV review and 20% off any of our careers services.

To register an interest and book a slot, please email us: cv@ten-percent.co.uk with the subject heading “16th June” and we will email you back with available slots.

conveyancer

admin — Wed, 26 May 2010 08:29:02 +0000

Conveyancer with experience of Visualfiles wanted for a West London firm

Unlimited Legal Recruitment?

admin — Mon, 10 May 2010 19:05:56 +0000

http://www.ten-percent.co.uk/low-cost-legal-recruitment.html

Ten Percent Legal Recruitment has been at the forefront of online recruitment since 2000, introducing the UK’s first online candidate database for law firms to view directly and request CVs from. We have decided for 2010 to introduce a new way of working which will suit small to medium firms who may be looking to recruit more than once within a 12 month period. For a one-off fee we will allow you to contact as many candidates as you want to through our database, whether by letter, e-mail or telephone, and to recruit without any further charge.

You can view anonymous but detailed CV’s for each candidate as well as a brief description outlining their skills and experience. You can also communicate with the candidate without them knowing who you are and vice versa. Our database covers solicitors, legal executives, licensed conveyancers and experienced fee earners. We also have details of secretaries and paralegals available as well. For further details and to request a quote please visit http://www.ten-percent.co.uk/low-cost-legal-recruitment.html

A Career Away from Law

admin — Mon, 10 May 2010 18:59:20 +0000

Moving away from the legal profession is a very big decision for a lot of lawyers, and one not to be taken lightly. It is something that comes up time and time again during our private career coaching sessions with clients, usually when lawyers get to about 3-6 years PQE or more.

If you are considering your options, think about the following:

1. Is it your job or your profession that is making you consider your options? Decide very carefully indeed…

2. Have you had thoughts about something you would like to do? If not, think. It is no good leaving the legal profession without any thought as to what you can do instead.

3. Have you got your financial commitments covered for a period of time?

4. Have you been to get experience in the profession you are thinking about going into?

5. Have you sat down and thought through all the factors affecting your decision making?

More to Law is a good starting website, together with Alec for free careers tests online. Our career coaching service is available at www.ten-percent.co.uk/career.htm

Duty Solicitors – the mad rush

admin — Mon, 10 May 2010 11:02:33 +0000

In the last 3 weeks we have seen an unprecedented number of duty solicitor vacancies posted by firms looking to get their CDS 12 submissions into the LSC and desperate to recruit a duty solicitor to enable them to do this. Lots of smaller start up firms as well as older established ones, together with firms where duty solicitors have given notice of their impending departure.

This has proved an impossible task for a number of firms. A large majority of duty solicitors have elected to stay put and not move, whilst others have opted to go freelance and put their slots with one firm. Most appear to have got themselves sorted out very early on, and although we were able to assist 2 firms with placements that occurred on the deadline date, we could not help a larger number at such short notice.

These are our tips for avoiding this next time (ie in 6 months time).

1. Plan ahead. At least one of our clients recruited a duty solicitor provisionally back in February, knowing that they needed someone for July. This was a new entrant firm.

2. Do not call round recruitment agencies 2 weeks beforehand, and if you have to, do not call more than 2 or 3. A few times we found some of our candidates who were actively looking were put off firms whom they thought were desperate because they had been contacted about their vacancy at least 5 times.

3. If you are within 2 weeks of the deadline, do not under any circumstances play hardball with candidates. It does not work – most candidates this time round got about 3-5 firms following them at any one time.

4. Do not make very low offers and expect to negotiate upwards. This happened with a couple of firms this time and the firms got nowhere.

5. If all else fails, consider freelancers with slots to offer. Be prepared to pay well, but bear in mind if you plan ahead next time you may be able to get someone on a permanent basis (or persuade the freelancer to stay longer term).

Please email us details of any vacancies to cv@ten-percent.co.uk or register the vacancy online by clicking this link – http://www.ten-percent.co.uk/registerer.htm

Legal Job Market Report – 10th May 2010 from Ten-Percent Legal

admin — Mon, 10 May 2010 10:51:18 +0000

The election result will inevitably have an effect on the mood of recruiters – most of the time as an industry we are very susceptible to world incidents 9/11, 7/7, the Gulf Wars etc.. – as law firms and in house departments tend to have other things to think about..

April 2010 has been a very good month, mainly thanks to the Legal Services Commission and the CDS 12 deadlines we have just been through. There is a shortage of solicitors now for a range of specialist roles – family panel members, children law solicitors, duty solicitors and higher court advocates – and we are getting law firms, charities and NGOs all requesting children panel members in particular (domestic violence module holders appear to be in great demand).

In April we had 42 vacancies posted for a whole range of different areas including Conveyancing, Commercial Property, Wills & Probate, Crime (lots), Family (lots), Industrial Disease, Personal Injury, Welfare Benefits, Employment, In House, Corporate Finance, Offshore, Child Care and Civil Litigation.

Commercial is still running fairly slowly, once you take out the larger firms generic lists, and most firms seem to be avoiding too much recruitment, but the high street is busy, and will remain so, particularly with the locum season almost upon us.

The market has definitely turned, vacancies are materialising and candidates are starting to be tied up again when we send out updates.

If you are thinking of recruiting and hoping to get a bargain due to the number of redundant solicitors still looking, this is now getting considerably harder as desirable candidates are working again, and the market left is getting increasingly B List rather than A List. A number of firms have found this and have had to revise offers upwards to attract candidates into their departments.

The new tax year has kick started the next round of recruitment, and we expect to be very busy now for the next 8 weeks until July 2010 when everything will slow down again.

Recent vacancies in – Commercial Property Solicitor – Cheshire, Crime Solicitor – St Albans, Children Panel Member – Middlesex, Employment – Wiltshire, Welfare Benefits & Debt – West Midlands, Family – Plymouth, Insolvency Lawyer – London, Personal Injury – Stockport.